


You Remain

by Artemis1000



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dead Laurel Lance, Established Relationship, F/F, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-11 02:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: It would have been easier for both of them if Laurel's ghost stopped haunting Jessica - but did they ever do anything the easy way?





	You Remain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



It would be a lot easier for both of them if Laurel would stop haunting Jessica.

The first times Jessica had seen her, she had been dressed in her Black Canary uniform, looking exactly as she had when Drakh stabbed her. When she had been _murdered_. Blood had spilled from her mouth, there was a hole in her uniform where the arrow had pierced her chest.

She had crouched before Jessica, who was slumped on the floor of her apartment as usual with a half-empty bottle cradled in her hands, and looked at her with the same dead, glassy eyes which Jessica saw in all her other nightmares.

She hadn’t been there to watch Laurel die, she hadn’t even been in Star City when it happened, but her own sadistic imagination had never had a problem with making up for her failings.

“You let me die,” Laurel had told her that day and a fresh wave of blood had spilled over her lips. “Look at me. You _murdered_ me.”

This was how Jessica had known this Laurel was a figment of her grieving and alcohol-soaked imagination. Laurel wouldn’t have held her death against Jessica, not like Jessica herself did.

She couldn’t tell when the Laurel haunting her turned into something – someone – far more real than anything her self-hating mind could procure. In hindsight, she thought that maybe it should have alarmed her more than it did.

In truth, she had simply been grateful to have Laurel returned to her in whatever way she could.

“Go away!” she barked now, throwing an empty bottle aimed right at the center of Laurel’s chest.

Today, she was wearing the same sensible pantsuit she had worn when Jessica first met her, the New York City private investigator butting heads with the Star City public prosecutor. Laurel had been so willful and determined and not in the least impressed by Jessica’s brusque, disrespectful attitude. Jessica had loathed her on sight, yet still admired her for her fighting spirit. There weren’t many people quite so determined to change the world for the better as Laurel Lance.

Laurel still looked all of that, and she also looked beautiful and anguished and painfully alive. She was barely translucent anymore, it was mostly just a peculiar shimmer that betrayed her for what she was.

The bottle passed right through Laurel’s chest and crashed to the floor somewhere behind her. Laurel looked down and blinked, finding herself perfectly whole. She heaved a sigh.

Jessica pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle the scream that wanted to escape. It always hurt the most, this reminder that no matter how alive Laurel looked, she wasn’t. It was why she still fought to break the illusion in every way she could. If she let herself believe for even one moment… She didn’t think she would be able to take it to lose Laurel a second time. She hadn’t been able to take it the first time either.

“You don’t want that, Jess,” Laurel pleaded. She stepped closer now that Jessica had surrendered her only feeble weapon.

She crouched before her, much like the first time she had seen Laurel Jessica was on the floor. Only today there was no anger in Laurel’s eyes. This was Laurel, the real Laurel. Her eyes were loving yet determined, just like they had been in life. The wan hateful copy of Laurel Jessica’s own mind had created could never compare to the reality that was Black Canary.

“And you don’t want to drink your life away.” She made to reach for Jessica’s other bottle, the one that stood to the left of her. This one was still full. She withdrew her hand before she could fail to touch it. She didn’t release Jessica’s gaze. “Please.” Jessica stifled a whimper, Laurel had always hated when Jessica drank.

Jessica wanted to growl at her, to push her away and kick her out like she would have done if anyone living had come to disturb her grief. With Laurel, it only ever made that grief feel sharper and keener as if her world had tuned in to this frequency that was all pain and an overwhelming need to scream her grief at the world.

“You’re dead,” she snapped, “you don’t get to ask anything of me.” She swallowed hard and pressed her lips together to hide any traitorous noises she might make. She inhaled and held her breath and exhaled and repeated it until the too-tight feeling in her chest eased just enough to trust herself. Then she steeled herself and snapped, “You lost that right when you died on me.” _Like everybody does_ , she didn’t say, but she could see in Laurel’s eyes that she understood. Laurel had always known her better than anyone else did.

It wasn’t altogether different from the arguments they had had when Laurel was alive, it just hurt more. _So I’m not perfect Tommy_ or _you can bet I’m no Arrow_ , she used to snap at Laurel, and Laurel would snap back and the argument would be inevitable, but she had always understood why Jessica kept picking at this wound before it could scab over.

“It’s not your fault, Jess.”

Jessica glared, it was easier to glare than to give in to the prickle of tears in her eyes – tears of anger, she told herself, for she had every reason to be angry at the world. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve always been better than that when you’re alive, Laurel. Don’t start now.”

Laurel’s face tightened with frustration and Jessica was reminded of the intense frustration that had gripped Laurel whenever she spoke of her earliest days as a masked vigilante. Jessica hadn’t met her until she already was Black Canary and she had often wished they had met earlier, that she could have been there to encourage Laurel when everybody told her that she needed to play it safe. Maybe she didn’t have much use for heroics but she had always had all the more use for Laurel doing what made her happy.

She scoffed. “You’re such a do-gooder.”

“Because I fight for what I believe in?” She gave her a sharp, demanding look. “You do the same. You’re just denying it.” She motioned to pluck at the bottle, though her fingers passed through it as they always did. “You’d rather people only see this.”

Damn, but she missed her. Jessica pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle the choked sobs that were suddenly bubbling up in her.

She missed her. It had been months since Laurel was buried and since Damien Drakh was defeated. It had been months and the hole Laurel had left behind wasn’t closing. Everybody had told her it would get better.

It wasn’t getting better, she just kept seeing more of Laurel – and when she was honest with herself, Jessica could admit that she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

“ _This_ is me.” She scowled, at herself, at Laurel, at the broken mess of an apartment around her.

She pressed her head back against the wall and gave a choked laugh, fingers more clawing than rubbing at her face. “You know, after Kilgrave, and when I met you…” She pressed her lips together, stifling another sob that wanted to escape. She had always preferred anger to tears, tears didn’t get you anywhere. Nobody ever stopped hurting you because you were crying. She continued in a hoarse whisper, “I thought…” Like every other time, her strength failed her before she could finish the sentence.

Laurel looked at her with such loving concern in her eyes that it was almost a physical hurt when she reached for Jessica, and her hand only hovered over her cheek without ever touching it.

For a little while, Jessica had actually believed good things were finally happening to her. It was hard not to believe in good things when Laurel Lance stormed into your life with a canary’s cry. She had been willing to believe, maybe not in luck or fate or even in herself, but she had been willing to believe in Laurel and Laurel had believed in her.

She had been such an idiot.

Damien Drakh had brought her back to reality. Killing Laurel as an afterthought, simply to prove a point to someone who wasn’t even there to witness it. Simply because he could. Just like _he_ had done.

“I thought people having to live with their ghosts is just a cheesy saying.” A bitter laugh escaped Jessica, it was a hoarse, raw sound that grated in her throat. “Goes to show what I know.”

Laurel looked at her, sad and earnest. She leaned forward slowly until her lips hovered against Jessica’s.

Jessica closed her eyes and crossed what distance remained between them. She felt coldness against her lips, a chill that burned like sticking a hand into a bucket of ice cubes.

When she opened her eyes, Laurel was gone but the icy burn on her lips remained.

 

Laurel never showed herself twice in the same day and sometimes days passed between her visits. It was just long enough for Jessica to start doubting herself and her own sanity, and almost convince herself that Laurel’s visits had never been anything but the product of grief and alcohol.

Then she showed up again when she least expected it.

Today it was when she returned from one of these mind-numbing investigations that would take all night. A cheating husband, a wife who Jessica could tell wouldn’t believe the truth even when she presented her with proof. Some people hired private investigators because they wanted confirmation of their suspicions, others hired them for reassurance. Jessica had always been better at providing one than the other.

Laurel was waiting for her, perched on her desk wearing one of her sensible lawyer outfits, the ones that Jessica would always scoff at and still liked to yank off her.

“How about you don’t haunt me when I need sleep and a drink,” Jessica snorted, walking right past her even though her heart was beating so loud in her ears that she could hardly believe Laurel wasn’t hearing it, too.

“How about…” Laurel cut herself off.

She followed Jessica into the bedroom. There were no footsteps but she still knew that Laurel was following her. She could always feel it when she was close, when she was watching her. Much as she tried to pretend, it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, rather like her caresses had been in life. It was one of the many things Jessica tried not to examine too closely.

When Jessica turned, Laurel was giving the appearance of leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked earnest, a little bit stern even. The kind of face she mostly wore when it was about her day job or her night job. “How long are you going to keep punishing yourself?”

Jessica sank down at the foot end of her bed, giving her a sullen look. “How much longer are you going to nag me about it?”

Laurel’s face softened. “However long it takes.” She smiled. It was a loving smile. “You know that.”

Jessica heaved a harsh sigh, a hand running through her hair. Her hands bore small cuts and scrapes, there had been some climbing – and falling – involved in getting the pictures she needed. “I know I didn’t kill you, Laurel.” She clenched her jaw. “But I sure as hell didn’t do anything to prevent it, did I? I shouldn’t have listened when you told me you had it under control. I should’ve been in Star City.”

Laurel echoed her sigh and came closer, crouching before Jessica and waiting patiently until she was willing to meet her eyes. Today, she didn’t even look a little bit translucent. It was so hard not to reach for her and destroy the illusion. “It was the hardest lesson I ever had to learn, back when Sara was missing and then when I lost her a second time. Bad things happen to good people and there’s nothing we could have done to prevent it.” She shook her head slightly. “But I’m not gone. Not fully. And I don’t want to spend what time I’ve left watching you destroy yourself, Jessica.”

“So what do you want me to do? Want me to switch to ghostbusting?”

“I want you to live!”

Jessica pressed her lips together. There was something so earnest and urgent about Laurel’s plea. Pessimist that she was, she couldn’t help wondering if she could feel that her time was coming to an end, if this was the cause of her recent urgency. Or maybe she had simply grown tired of watching Jessica destroy herself, everyone grew tired of it sooner or later.

Laurel looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. Her brows furrowed. “I want to live, too.”

“You’re dead.”

“But I’m still here.”

Jessica couldn’t deny that – and neither could she deny that she wouldn’t want it any other way. She had tried. She swallowed hard. “Have you ever tried leaving this apartment?”

“I tried to appear to Sara or Oliver. It didn’t work.”

“No.” Jessica leaned forward, her gaze burning with intensity. “We know that; you’re bound to me. But have you ever tried leaving with me?”

She knew the answer, of course. When they fought, Jessica would leave and Laurel would stay behind.

And then, since they were already at firsts, she couldn’t help herself prodding, “Have you ever again tried using your Canary Cry?”

In the movies, ghosts had abilities, terrible or powerful ones sometimes. Laurel had yet to do anything but be a nuisance about her drinking habits.

“My sonic scream’s not a natural ability, you know that. I use a gadget.”

It felt like a spark of hope, mad hope maybe, and one which Jessica didn’t truly want to nurture at all. Disappointment would only hurt them both and yet…

“But have you tried? Have you tried to do anything at all, other than tormenting me?!”

Laurel didn’t answer. She looked so terribly pained that Jessica wished she could take back her words. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, neither in life nor in death.

She vanished moments after, slowly fading away like a cheap movie special effect, and Jessica couldn’t tell if that meant she would be thinking about it or not.

Probably not. She had never been good at making the right choices. Probably just scared Laurel off, if she’d ever been real at all.

Ghosts. Who believed in ghosts anyway?

 

Laurel didn’t return.

It was the longest she had been gone. After a week, Jessica stopped telling herself that she wasn’t hurting.

At night, she dreamed of Laurel. She would come to her and whisper _I’m sorry_ to her but by the time Jessica could be certain she was awake and no longer dreaming Laurel would be gone, leaving her apartment colder and emptier than before.

After two weeks, she didn’t even try to justify that she was drowning herself in alcohol like in her worst post-Kilgrave days, or the worst days right after Laurel’s death. Tish had long since gone from mildly concerned to officially worried but Jessica hadn’t been able to give her anything but sullen silence. _My ghost girlfriend has dumped me_ would only leave her more concerned for Jessica’s state of mind than no explanation at all.

There was a knock on her door. It was, actually, the fifth knock on her door, each one progressively louder and more obnoxious.

“Nobody’s home, fuck off!” Jessica bellowed from the bedroom. She wasn’t sitting on the floor this time. She was sitting on the bed. There was still a bottle in her hand, there always was these days.

The door creaked as it was opened, followed by footsteps. “I’m letting myself in, alright, Jessica?”

It was a woman’s voice, vaguely familiar in a way which Jessica wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint even if she had been sober.

She wasn’t left wondering for long. She had barely stood up, ready to use the bottle as a weapon against an intruder, when a woman appeared in the doorway.

She was blonde, tired and shockingly familiar though Jessica had never met her. She was dressed like she was ready to wage war – like something Laurel’s hero friends would have worn. There was a heartbreaking familiarity to her kind eyes. “Hello, Jessica. I think it’s time we finally met.”

The world still looked blurry-edged but all of a sudden, Jessica was more shockingly sober than she had been in days. Her heart felt tight and she realized belatedly that the roiling feeling in her stomach was nausea. “White Canary.”

She smiled. “I think it’s Sara for my sister’s girlfriend.”

“I…” She looked down at herself, wearing the same clothes she had been wearing for days, knowing her hair was a bird’s nest and her face not much better. Never mind her apartment. It wasn’t much of a first impression.

She gulped hard, still avoiding Sara’s eyes. She had never met Sara while Laurel lived and again, hadn’t been in Star City when Sara returned and learned the truth. It was like she was never there when she was needed the most.

“Jessica.” Sara waited until Jessica couldn’t stand the silence any longer and looked up again. Sara really looked tired. Stricken, even, now that Jessica was looking closer. “I need your help.”

She physically flinched. “As you can see, I’m no help to anyone,” she grumbled, brushing past Sara and making sure to jostle her as she went by.

Faster than her drunken mind could keep up, Sara’s hand snaked forward and caught her wrist. “ _Jessica_.” Again, she waited. “I don’t have much time.” Her lips quirked as she added quietly, like an inside joke, “in this time.” The humor faded as if it had never been there. She locked their eyes. “Damien Drakh is back.”

It felt like the world was slipping away underneath her. Like when Felicity had called to tell her of Laurel’s death. Like when she first realized Kilgrave was back.

Jessica felt numb – and beneath the numbness, the jagged edges felt sharper than ever. Sharpened to a point.

There was a sudden prickle at the back of her neck, stemming from a different kind of chill – Laurel’s chill. She didn’t look for her. Didn’t look away from Sara’s steely gaze at all. The chill brushed against the back of her neck, raising goosebumps on her skin.

Laurel felt stronger. Solid. Could solid be a feeling? There was a presence to her and Jessica wondered if Sara couldn’t sense her or if she took no notice because she knew perfectly well that they weren’t alone. After all, Sara had cheated death first.

These were good questions but they could wait for later.

Right now, the world stopped falling apart under Jessica’s feet and she landed on solid ground.

“What do you need me to do?”


End file.
